PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist 64-bit Version of Biab

Well, from my understanding is the squeaky wheel gets oiled. If it gets too squeaky it gets replaced with a nice shiny new one.

There are a couple of major DAWs that have chord tracks now, but there are not many people that are listening to the kind of music you get from just pushing play.

You can also do the same thing with Jammer Pro if you like working with midi.

Granted it's not a refined process as PG has it, but now I can make my own RT and use them in my DAW. I can use many of the sample/midi libraries that are available.

No, I'm afraid unless they do something, BIAB will just end up being a relic that's cherished by those wholly invested in it.

They will still run those old machines that support it, but newer software has already started replacing them.

I'm sure they deserve everything they get. I mean they work really hard and seem to be very successful, but sleeping on this might be their downfall.

Time will tell.

Edit: There's also Orb Composer that is like Rapid Composer.

Oh man, I've been following this thread (and a lot of the other, similar ones) with great interest, and I have so many thoughts I would not even know where to begin!

Before I begin, I want to apologize in advance in case I offend anyone here. Basically, I've always pursued music from a purely instrumental and theoretical. I play guitar and bass (quite proficiently, I like to think), and I am decently versed in music theory. I used BiaB strictly for learning purposes, and as a backing track tool to experiment with different progressions, chord modulations, etc, and music production and songwriting wasn't really an interest of mine until a couple of years or so ago.

I started using Reaper to collab online with many younger producers and songwriters who just wanted some live bass, some rhythm guitar or a guitar solo here and there. I started watching Kenny Goia's videos on YT to get better at Reaper, and suddenly my interest in production blossomed. I started experimenting with various effects, VSTs, and other plugins, and my mind was basically blown by how many possibilities are out there. Unfortunately, it also opened my eyes to a myriad of grievous shortcomings inherent in BiaB and RB from a production/workflow perspective



Here's a few random thoughts (any number of which I could very well be wrong about, fwiw).

A. PG Music is quite content in it's little niche. The folks here in the forum are the main demographic, and their bread and butter. The fact that new features are those such as video realtracks rather then more substantive things like the redesigned ACW, with the new release is evidence of the above.

B. No one's gonna have money for a yacht when they retire, and I imagine there will be enough to give their employees three months wages and perhaps a celebratory brunch at a reasonably priced family restaurant when and if they liquidate their assets. Earlier in this thread someone referred to a million dollars for each employee and I almost choked on coffee.

C. With the "right" management, PG Music could be raking in some serious revenue. I'm not saying it's being mismanaged. The owners are free to do as they please with their own business and product(s). I'm just saying if they wanted to make money, they could. Which leads me to...

D. There is no marketing presence to speak of. I recently downloaded a bunch of product demos from Native Instruments and I get popups non-stop. They also have dozens upon dozens of slickly produced videos highlighting scads of mind-blowing sounds that may be achieved by their product. To start raking in cash at this point, their marketing budget, IMO, should be multiples of what they spend on having their Realtracks recorded.

E. The program is just an antiquated mess. Hire a frikking team of programmers and clean this thing up. I don't care about the visuals (although I've no doubt it turns hundreds of potential customers off from even looking under the hood of the program), but there are so many things that should just work properly. For instance, the harmony future is absolutely brilliant-especially with the Intelligent Mode or whatever it's called. Unfortunately, whenever I've tried to use it the results sound downright awful and nothing like in the demo. There are so many requested features that are more like requests for bug fixes that are brought up on the forums, and there is virtually no response from PG Music.

I got a whole lot more where that came from, but I have to get back to work for moment. Also, I have not addresses some of the things that make BiaB one of the most brilliant and unique programs ever, and why you barely, if ever, hear the program hitting above 25 percent of its potential on the User Showcase (caveat, I don't spend a lot of time there, so don't take it personally, I may not have listened to your song so I'm not referring to your stuff as an individual... also, I'm not saying that these songs I listen to are not excellent songs, I'm just saying that they don't leverage what BiaB can do based on the hours I spent coming through the manual and generating all sorts of experimental stuff that blew my mind clear out of the water...)

Anyway, I've been loving these discussions, but gotta get back to work for the moment.

Thanks for your input! My feeling is that the program is pretty much feature complete ... and that's putting it lightly.


The program does what it needs to do, and so that may just be the final story of BIAB. I can totally understand their position of not feeling any pressure to act.

I know it must be hard for them not to take it personal, but I have nothing but the utmost respect for them and I want to see the program grow.

64 bit may not be in the cards for BIAB, but who really cares? They made their mark in the business, and you can always find a old machine to run it on for like forever and ever.

If I do knock anything about the program it's going to be the marketing. For instance who in the world feels like they bought a "pro" version with the basic version?

Please don't get me started. :-)

It is nice to hear well thought out and stated points as you have done. And I get why you felt the need to apologize in advance!


The demographic you referenced is aging and without a clear path to attract new/younger users I'm concerned this awesome program will just fade away. And things like video tracks just really puzzle me. I applaud the skill it took to create them but question their usefulness and don't even know if they have a plan for them beyond being 2018's novelty feature.


Regardless of whether they wish to make lots of money I feel they need to up their game to attract more users/customers.


I understand the dilemma they face but you are right that it needs to be fixed and I think a new VSTi product would be their best direction. When I first bought the product in 2012 I was overwhelmed and pretty much remain so! But that is mainly because of the UI, especially the dialog boxes and the manual. I have mostly given up on anything but generating RealTracks to use in my DAW.


I would like to hear more and I hope PGM would like to hear more as well.

It really is an awesome program they have created and PG is a bonafide genius for imagining and developing it! What I can do with these RealTracks is nothing short of amazing. And I am pretty sure I have only realized a portion of what is possible. If this program had a modern interface and additional tools geared toward modern music it would be a killer product across all genres and generations!

I do criticize a lot and pretty harsh at times but it is only through frustration as it can be so much better. I think it's good to have constructive criticism just so long as it leads to construction.

There would be some that find the video realtracks helpful but maybe if they were green screen you could mix the artist together to create your own music video


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfv14tFFbP4

Then add your own background

Perhaps "they" can rest on their laurels, but at least setup a forum/thread where your users can give you feedback on what they would like to see. I get it that there may be no need to port BIAB over to 64 bit. There's probably not even a real cost benefit to do so, but what's at stake is the BIAB branding.

You can still market the brand via other means. Maybe look for a current VST developer you might want to partner with and license the brand to. That would certainly be a lot cheaper to invest in, and all you would have to do is focus on the integration.

I think they have to take in consideration that the reason some of us gripe and complain is because it's not hate, but it's that we love the program and would love to see it get with the times.

There are not many of us that can claim a success story such as this one, and when some of those shiny new gimmicky programs have come and gone ... I'd say that BIAB will still be standing strong.

That's what happens when you create something special, and I can see them wanting to go out on a high note, instead of gambling with what has been undoubtedly a true success story. /imho

This is my first post in this forum. I set out this morning to check on the status of a 64-bit Mac update, since I see a 64-bit Windows update is out. My two cents on this topic:

I use BIAB as a practice tool and for generating scratch tracks for arrangements I complete on my DAW. My last update was to BIAB 2017. The reality is that unless a 64-bit Mac version of BIAB is made available (and fairly soon) it will have to be left behind. The other software and devices I use force me to stay relatively up to date over time, and when 32-bit apps become unusable that will be the end for 32-bit BIAB. I may keep an old Mac around for awhile just for BIAB and a few other 32-bit apps, but I know better than to believe that will work for very long. Bottom line is that buying 32-bit BIAB updates no longer makes sense for me.

Here's hoping PG Music is working on a fabulous new 64-bit Mac version of BIAB!

I think the reason why the Win version is now 64/32 is because Mac is forcing 64 bit only, so I would say you have a 99.9% chance.

Brassive, welcome. I see you are new on the forum. You’ve probably checked in here before and know this, but just in case, the developers release the new Windows version in December and the new Mac version the following late spring. They make an effort to have the two versions similar and have closed the gap in recent years.

I have a Mac with BIAB. It’s not my main production machine but I’ve seen the 32-bit software warning. I am confident there will be a 64-bit Mac BIAB before BIAB will no longer run on Mac.

That really depends on which API Biab is using! If it bases on Carbon-API, and I guess it does because of its strange and non-native look-and-feel, then there will be no way to make it 64 bit because a 64 bit Carbon does not exist. The reason is that the development of Carbon has been stopped 2007!!!

The only way would be to completely rewrite the whole user interface code in Cocoa and Swift (or ObjC), what would be really great but is barely doable in a year or less!

If they used a crossplatform development we would get the same features Win\Mac and released at the same time like most other crossplatform apps and not have to spend the other 6 months working on the Mac version.

Good point, Pipeline.
Actually, I think the development environment is cross-platform, but I do think that there are significant other external factors that would make this problematic (disparate methods on how audio systems are integrated on the different O/S's etc). This is only a guess though.

+1 here